Jazz Articles

Mike Nock: Hearing

by Barry O'Sullivan
December 21, 2023

Mike Nock has had a varied sixty-five-year musical journey, receiving many awards and honours. It has been thirty years since he released his celebrated solo piano album Touch, recorded at the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Eugene Goossens Hall in Sydney in 1993. Hearing has him returning to the same hall for another solo album and, as the title indicates, it is all about the facility of perceiving sounds aptly and interpreting them in a particular way on a range of his ...

Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band: Tell It Like It Is

by C. Michael Bailey
February 26, 2010

Australian pianist Mark Isaacs has been recording forward-thinking progressive jazz for the past 25 years. His new millennium recordings have garnered popular response, including Closer (Naxos, 2000), Keeping the Standards (Vorticity Music, 2003), Visions (Vorticity Music, 2006), and Resurgence (ABC, 2007). During the last decade, Isaacs has been approaching a new assertive sound that unifies the more scripted elements of adult contemporary jazz with the improvisatory elements of the music's first 100 years.

Tell It Like It is was recorded ...

Mark Isaacs Resurgence Band: Tell It Like It Is

by John Kelman
July 3, 2009

Sometimes it's better to work on home turf, with familiar musicians. Mark Isaacs' studio disc, Resurgence (ABC Jazz, 2007), paired the Australian pianist and guitarist James Muller--another Australian talent deserving of far greater attention--with American heavy hitters including drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, bassist Jay Anderson and saxophonist Bob Sheppard. But as fine as the relative miniatures of Resurgence were, Isaacs' revamped Resurgence Band and the extended workouts of the live Tell It Like It Is far surpass anything on the previous ...

Bennetts Lane Big Band: The Snip

by Barry O'Sullivan
March 8, 2008

This big band emerged in 2002 when eleven of Australia's finest jazz musicians came together as the Bennett's Lane Big Band. It was conceived as a vehicle for the performance of new works traversing the fields of improvised and composed music. Since its inception the band has played at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival and The Wangaratta Jazz Festival in addition to maintaining it's residency at Bennett's Lane Jazz Club, Melbourne's premier jazz joint, on the first Monday of every ...

The Idea of North: Live at The Powerhouse

by Barry O'Sullivan
November 23, 2007

Like the great vocal groups that have preceded them such as Lambert, Hendricks and Ross, Singers Unlimited, The Swingle Singers and The Manhattan Transfer, The Idea of North has learned from the best and taken the art form to new levels with its Live at The Brisbane Powerhouse CD/DVD combo.

This vocal a capella vocal ensemble just swings and swings with impeccable harmonies and an understanding of each others' vocal parts. The breadth of the group's ...

Mark Isaacs: Resurgence

by C. Michael Bailey
October 15, 2007

Australian pianist and composer Mark Isaacs has done more than most any other jazz musician to seal the fault line between serious modern jazz improvisation and “contemporary jazz or “adult oriented jazz. I tend to classify the former as the jazz father's and earlier genre traditionalists (bebop, hard bop, modal) and the latter as well-behaved, unobtrusive music made by nameless popular performers, selling millions of copies.

Isaacs, with every release, has refined his systematic approach to post-modernity jazz ...

Mark Isaacs: Resurgence

by John Kelman
August 17, 2007

After two albums exploring jazz standards and popular contemporary music--Keeping the Standards (Vorticity, 2004) and --Visions (Vorticity, 2006)--Australian pianist Mark Isaacs returns to original composition on Resurgence. A fixture on the Sydney scene, Isaacs has recruited his dream band for a strong program of contemporary mainstream jazz..

Isaac's American compatriots--bassist Jay Anderson, drummer Vinnie Colaiuta and, on select tracks, woodwind multi-instrumentalists Bob Sheppard and Steve Tavaglione--have often intersected, but not all together in one room at the same time. Isaacs' ...

Ten Part Invention: Live at Wangaratta

by Jack Bowers
March 30, 2007

"Bittersweet, according to Webster, is anything that is “pleasant yet painful. And that is an apt description of Live at Wangaratta,, taped at the Jazz Festival bearing that name by the east Australian ensemble Ten Part Invention during a concert on the last day of October, 1999. All of the music for the occasion was written by the group's pianist, Roger Frampton, who was dying of an inoperable brain tumor. His mates knew it, of course, and poured their hearts ...

The Andrea Keller Quartet: Angels and Rascals

by Bev Stapleton
December 28, 2005

British blues enthusiasts often reflect on how, in the '50s and early '60s, they chanced upon what seemed like music from another planet. Tracks heard on crackly US service radio frequencies, or the acquisition of the occasional record brought in by a merchant seaman uncle, opened up worlds of sound that bore no relation to what the BBC or local dance halls were offering.

It can be a bit like that for those of us in Europe or the States ...

Mike Nock's Bigsmallband: Live

by John Kelman
December 23, 2004

With relatively few recordings as a leader over a career that is now in its fifth decade, any new release from New Zealand pianist Mike Nock is an event. After living in the US for twenty years where, amongst other things, he was a member of the early fusion group Fourth Way, Nock returned to Australia. He has lived there ever since, becoming a leading figure as performer, educator, and mentor to up-and-coming musicians on the Australian jazz scene. He's ...